Crafty ideas, crochet, knitting, sewing, pathwork and papercrafts

Perfect corners! July 30, 2009

Our first Thursday Quilting session was a blast. Gill had me set up from the start, and whilst I sew’ed she cut for me, and checked on proceedings, and made coffee. Lovely all up. That same afternoon the DDs had a birthday party to attend, and I in turn had 3 more hours of sewing at home.

Gill shared with me a great technique for getting perfect corners on my nine-patch.

I have, with a little help from my trusty assistant DD9 put together a photo shoot of the steps.

First, rule up your nine-patch including seam allowances onto glad-bake. If your finished piece is 6” x 6”, you’ll be cutting your nine patches 2.5” x 2.5” so rule up a nine-patch made up of 2.5” x 2.5” squares. Then cut a piece of interfacing the same size, center on your drawing and pin to your ironing board. We made sure the drawn on side of the gladbake was facing down, to not get any pen marks rubbed on to the interfacing. (and make sure the glue-side of the interfacing is UP).

Next, lay your fabric patches on top, along the markings on the paper. Making sure to butt up the sides of the patches carefully and not let them overlap.

Then place another piece of glad-bake over the entire thing and press (no steam). The glad-bake will stop any glue from the interfacing ending up on your iron. I love this tip.

Fold two rows of patches together, right sides facing and stitch with a 1/4” seam. Repeat with the other row running in the same direction.

Next, I trim the edge of the fold that has just been stitched. This is not a necessary step, but as my quilt will be for a garden bench, I will try to minimize the bulk of the seam to make it softer to sit on. I cut off just enough to be able to open up the seam. This could be done with scissors but the rotary cutter does it in a jiffy.

Once you cat stitched and trimmed two rows running in the same direction, fold you fabric along the seam running the other way, making sure to open the stitched seams.

This is made easier if you run you nail along the seam first, or iron it open. I dont like ironing it open, its very fiddly, and if you iron your interfacing too much it will shrink.

When you have finished you last two seam, trim, and ta da! your perfect corners are ready to be admired.